Patterns of early literacy and word reading skill development across the first 6 months of school and reading instruction.

This study described the growth trajectories of 105 children (n = 55 boys) who had just started primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed every fourth school week around 1.5 months after starting school, for five sessions on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills first sound fluency (FSF), AIMSweb letter sound fluency (LSF), and a newly created NZ word identification fluency (NZWIF-Y1), designed for alignment with beginning reading instruction in NZ. In addition to progress monitoring tasks, children were assessed at school entry and after progress monitoring on literacy-related criterion measures. All three progress monitoring measures were sensitive to growth over the children's first 6 months of school. Cross-sectional time-series analyses indicated that within-child increases in FSF and LSF were associated with increases in NZWIF-Y1, although FSF did not add unique variance when both FSF and LSF were entered as predictors. Furthermore, growth mixture modeling indicated three latent growth trajectories for each indicator (FSF, LSF, NZWIF-Y1, respectively): Class 1-high initial scores and strong growth over time (72.09%, 55.87%, 22.81%); Class 2-lower initial scores and moderate growth over time (19.18%, 29.12%, 54.30%); and Class 3-low initial scores and limited progress over time (8.73%, 15.00%, 22.89%). Criterion measures assessed prior and after progress monitoring were typically associated with latent class membership. Results suggest relative growth in performance on repeated assessment of early literacy and word reading skills in beginning reading instruction distinguishes groups of students with differential skill acquisition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Sexual and reproductive health knowledges: a study with Pacific young people enrolled in an Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary institution.

Pacific young people living in Aotearoa New Zealand experience disparities in their sexual and reproductive health outcomes, thought to stem from cultural differences and educational inequities. Although these barriers have been characterised in literature, their influence on Pacific youth's understandings of sexual and reproductive health have been relatively unexplored. This study investigated the sexual and reproductive health knowledge of Pacific students enrolled at a university in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2020 and where they gained this knowledge. The study used the theoretical framework of the (revitalised) Fonofale health model and was guided by the Kakala research methodology. Data were collected by means of an online survey comprised of open-ended questions and Likert scales, completed by eighty-one eligible students. Open-ended questions were analysed for general themes and responses to Likert scale items are reported using descriptive statistical analysis. The study found that Pacific youth have strong foundations of health knowledge that is heavily influenced by Polynesian cultural beliefs. Both formal and non-formal learning environments were important in developing participants' health knowledge of these topics and for encouraging independent help-seeking behaviours. This is the first reported study to investigate the sexual and reproductive health knowledges of a pan-Pacific tertiary cohort of young people.

Kia Timata Pai (Best Start): a study protocol for a cluster randomised trial with early childhood teachers to support children's oral language and self-regulation development.

INTRODUCTION: Oral language skills are associated with children's later self-regulation and academic skills; in turn, self-regulation in early childhood predicts successful functioning later in life. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the separate and combined effectiveness of an oral language intervention (Enhancing Rich Conversations, ENRICH) and a self-regulation intervention (Enhancing Neurocognitive Growth with the Aid of Games and Exercise, ENGAGE) with early childhood teachers and parents for children's oral language, self-regulation and academic functioning. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The Kia Timata Pai (Best Start) study is a cluster randomised controlled trial with teachers and children in approximately 140 early childhood centres in New Zealand. Centres are randomly assigned to receive either oral language intervention only (ENRICH), self-regulation intervention only (ENGAGE), both interventions (ENRICH+ENGAGE) or an active control condition. Teachers' and parents' practices and children's oral language and self-regulation development are assessed at baseline at age 1.5 years and approximately every 9 months to age 5, and academic performance at age 6. Teacher-child interactions will also be videotaped each year in a subset of the centres. Children's brain and behaviour development and parent-child interactions will be assessed every 6 months to age 6 years in a subgroup of volunteers. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The Kia Timata Pai trial and the two substudies (Video Project; Brain and Behaviour Development) have been approved by the University of Otago Human Ethics Committee (Health; H20/116), and reviewed for cultural responsiveness by: the Ngai Tahu Research Committee (University of Otago), the Maori Advisory Group (University of Auckland, Liggins Institute) and an internal cultural advisory group. Results will be disseminated in international and national peer-reviewed academic journals and communicated to local, national and international organisations serving early childhood teachers, parents and young children. Data will be available via communication with the corresponding author. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ACTRN12621000845831.

A Polynesian-specific missense CETP variant alters the lipid profile.

Identifying population-specific genetic variants associated with disease and disease-predisposing traits is important to provide insights into the genetic determinants of health and disease between populations, as well as furthering genomic justice. Various common pan-population polymorphisms at CETP associate with serum lipid profiles and cardiovascular disease. Here, sequencing of CETP identified a missense variant rs1597000001 (p.Pro177Leu) specific to Maori and Pacific people that associates with higher HDL-C and lower LDL-C levels. Each copy of the minor allele associated with higher HDL-C by 0.236 mmol/L and lower LDL-C by 0.133 mmol/L. The rs1597000001 effect on HDL-C is comparable with CETP Mendelian loss-of-function mutations that result in CETP deficiency, consistent with our data, which shows that rs1597000001 lowers CETP activity by 27.9%. This study highlights the potential of population-specific genetic analyses for improving equity in genomics and health outcomes for population groups underrepresented in genomic studies.

School-entry skills and early skill trajectories predict reading after 1 year.

Oral language and early literacy skills are theorized to provide the foundation for reading acquisition. To understand these relations, methods are needed that depict dynamic skill development in the context of reading acquisition. We modeled contributions of school-entry skills and early skill trajectories to later reading with 105 5-year-old children beginning primary school and formal literacy instruction in New Zealand. Children were assessed at school-entry (Preschool Early Literacy Indicators), followed every fourth school week over their first 6 months of school (five probes of First Sound Fluency, Letter Sound Fluency, and New Zealand Word Identification Fluency: Year 1), and after 1 year of school (researcher-administered and school-used indices of literacy-related skills and reading progress). Modified latent change score (mLCS) modeling was used to describe skill development from repeated progress-monitoring data. Ordinal regression and structural equation modeling (path analyses) indicated skills at school-entry and early learning trajectories, indexed by mLCS, predicted children's early literacy progress. Results have implications for research and screening in beginning reading, supporting school-entry screening and progress monitoring of early literacy skills in beginning reading acquisition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Exposure to behavioral regularities in everyday life predicts infants' acquisition of mental state vocabulary.

There are two broad views of children's theory of mind. The mentalist view is that it emerges in infancy and is possibly innate. The minimalist view is that it emerges more gradually in childhood and is heavily dependent on learning. According to minimalism, children initially understand behaviors rather than mental states, and they are assisted in doing so by recognizing repeating patterns in behavior. The regularities in behavior allow them to predict future behaviors, succeed on theory-of-mind tasks, acquire mental state words, and eventually, understand the mental states underlying behavior. The present study provided the first clear evidence for the plausibility of this view by fitting head cameras to 54 infants aged 6 to 25 months, and recording their view of the world in their daily lives. At 6 and 12 months, infants viewed an average of 146.5 repeated behaviors per hour, a rate consistent with approximately 560,000 repetitions in their first year, and with repetitions correlating with children's acquisition of mental state words, even after controlling for their general vocabulary and a range of variables indexing social interaction. We also recorded infants' view of people searching or searching for and retrieving objects. These were 92 times less common and did not correlate with mental state vocabulary. Overall, the findings indicate that repeated behaviors provide a rich source of information for children that would readily allow them to recognize patterns in behavior and help them acquire mental state words, providing the first clear evidence for this claim of minimalism. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Six- to 25-month-olds wore head cameras to record home life from infants' point-of-view and help adjudicate between nativist and minimalist views of theory-of-mind (ToM). Nativists say ToM is too early developing to enable learning, whereas minimalists say infants learn to predict behaviors from behavior patterns in environment. Consistent with minimalism, infants had an incredibly rich exposure (146.5/h, >560,000 in first year) to repeated behaviors (e.g., drinking from a cup repeatedly). Consistent with minimalism, more repeated behaviors correlated with infants' mental state vocabulary, even after controlling for gender, age, searches witnessed and non-mental state vocabulary.

Could, would, should: Theory of mind and deontic reasoning in Tongan children.

This study examined the developmental profiles of children's social reasoning about individual agentive and deontic concerns. Tongan children (N = 140, 47.9% male), aged 4-8 years, were given a set of mentalistic (standard theory-of-mind) and deontic reasoning tasks. On average, children found diverse desires, knowledge access, hidden emotion, and belief emotion easier than the false-belief and diverse belief tasks. Tongan children were sensitive to social norms governing behavior, and this information was recruited for predicting behavior in a false-belief task when embedded in a socially normative context. We discuss the potential for cultural mandates to shape children's social understanding and the impact of culture on our theoretical framing of children's development.

The role of whanau (New Zealand Maori families) for Maori children's early learning.

The home-learning environment (HLE) is critical for young children's early learning skills, yet little research has focused on HLEs in indigenous communities. This study examined the role of the HLE of 41 whanau (New Zealand Maori families and community) in relation to their young children's (M = 4 years, 4 months) early learning skills. Parents were observed reading a picture book and reminiscing about past events with their children and reported on their cultural affiliation, literacy, and numeracy practices. Children completed vocabulary, narrative, early literacy, early numeracy, and self-regulation tasks. Principal components analyses revealed an early academic skills factor (story comprehension, story memory, phonological awareness, letter recognition, number recognition, counting, and self-regulation) and an oral language skills factor (receptive and expressive vocabulary and story comprehension). Parents' observed book reading and reminiscing correlated with children's early academic skills, and their observed book reading correlated with children's oral language skills. Parent-child reminiscing was a unique, positive predictor of children's early academic skills. Oral narratives such as reminiscing may be a less visible cultural practice that supports children's early learning. Yet reminiscing is a recognized skill within indigenous communities that have a strong emphasis of intergenerational oral transmission of culturally relevant information. Reminiscing is a source of resilience for whanau, and perhaps for other communities around the world, that needs to be highlighted and taken into account for theory and policy about children's early learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Describing patterns of early literacy skill development in the first year of school and reading instruction in a New Zealand sample.

This study describes trajectories of early literacy skill development of 99 children (n = 55 boys) in their first year of primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed twice weekly for 8 weeks on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2011) First Sound Fluency (FSF) and AIMSweb Letter Sound Fluency (LSF; Shinn & Shinn, 2002), with other early literacy and beginning reading skills assessed before and after progress monitoring. FSF and LSF growth trajectories were modeled separately. Multilevel modeling indicated improved performance; however, growth mixture modeling indicated 3 growth trajectories (i.e., latent classes; FSF and LSF, respectively): typical (77.6% of children, 65.7%), developing (10.8%, 14.6%), and limited progress (11.6%, 19.7%). Beginning of year screening was sometimes associated with latent class membership, whereas latent class membership differentiated mid- and year-end literacy skills. Results support progress monitoring of early literacy skills within the NZ context to aid earlier identification of children at-risk for difficulties with reading acquisition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Use of a head camera to examine maternal input and its relation to 10- to 26-month-olds' acquisition of mental and non-mental state vocabulary.

We examined the relation between maternal responsiveness and children's acquisition of mental and non-mental state vocabulary in 59 pairs of mothers and children aged 10 to 26 months as they engaged in a free-play episode. Children wore a head camera and responsiveness was defined as maternal talk that commented on the child's actions (e.g., when the child reached for or manipulated an object visible in the head camera). As hypothesized, maternal responsiveness correlated with both mental and non-mental state vocabulary acquisition in younger children (approximately 18 months and younger) but not older children. We posit a diminishing role for maternal responsiveness in language acquisition as children grow older.

Toddlers' Self-Recognition and Progression From Goal- to Emotion-Based Helping: A Longitudinal Study.

Research has typically used cross-sectional designs to draw conclusions on the development of helping. This study aimed to examine the development of instrumental and empathic helping behaviors as they emerge, and assess how self-recognition might moderate this progression. Seventy-two children (14- to 25-months at T1) were assessed over four monthly sessions. Participants' individual response patterns showed instrumental helping to be a necessary precursor to empathic helping for 55.77%-67.92% of children who helped during the study. Self-recognition emerged before empathic but not instrumental helping, yet did not directly influence helping behavior.

Coaching in maternal reminiscing with preschoolers leads to elaborative and coherent personal narratives in early adolescence.

This long-term follow-up of an early childhood training study (Growing Memories) to promote elaborative reminiscing tested continued effects on mother-child reminiscing and on adolescents' narrative coherence. Of the original 115 families, 100 participated when their children were 3.5 years of age and 76 participated when their children were young adolescents (Mage = 11.2 years). Mothers and children reminisced about a positive event and a negative event at each timepoint, and adolescents narrated high points and low points. Mothers and children who had participated in the reminiscing intervention in early childhood remained more elaborative in dyadic reminiscing over time. Moreover, adolescents whose mothers had participated in elaborative reminiscing training in early childhood told more coherent low-point narratives (with respect to context and theme) than adolescents of mothers in the control group. These long-term benefits for the quality of mother-adolescent reminiscing and adolescents' narrative coherence have implications for theories of narrative identity development and for designing interventions in early childhood to foster autobiographical memory, which may help later understanding of difficult life events.

A program to respond to otitis media in remote Australian Aboriginal communities: a qualitative investigation of parent perspectives.

BACKGROUND: Indigenous infants and children in Australia, especially in remote communities, experience early and chronic otitis media (OM) which is difficult to treat and has lifelong impacts in health and education. The LiTTLe Program (Learning to Talk, Talking to Learn) aimed to increase infants' access to spoken language input, teach parents to manage health and hearing problems, and support children's school readiness. This paper aimed to explore caregivers' views about this inclusive, parent-implemented early childhood program for 0-3 years in an Aboriginal community health context. METHODS: Data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 9 caregivers of 12 children who had participated in the program from one remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory are presented. Data were analysed thematically. Caregivers provided overall views on the program. In addition, three key areas of focus in the program are also presented here: speech and language, hearing health, and school readiness. RESULTS: Caregivers were positive about the interactive speech and language strategies in the program, except for some strategies which some parents found alien or difficult: such as talking slowly, following along with the child's topic, using parallel talk, or baby talk. Children's hearing was considered by caregivers to be important for understanding people, enjoying music, and detecting environmental sounds including signs of danger. Caregivers provided perspectives on the utility of sign language and its benefits for communicating with infants and young children with hearing loss, and the difficulty of getting young community children to wear a conventional hearing aid. Caregivers were strongly of the opinion that the program had helped prepare children for school through familiarising their child with early literacy activities and resources, as well as school routines. But caregivers differed as to whether they thought the program should have been located at the school itself. CONCLUSIONS: The caregivers generally reported positive views about the LiTTLe Program, and also drew attention to areas for improvement. The perspectives gathered may serve to guide other cross-sector collaborations across health and education to respond to OM among children at risk for OM-related disability in speech and language development.

Variety in parental use of "want" relates to subsequent growth in children's theory of mind.

In 2 cross-lagged, longitudinal studies we contrasted parental talk about want in a single context versus multiple contexts. Study 1 examined thirty-two 2 year olds, with mothers describing pictures to children. Mothers could use want in zero, one, or multiple contexts. Children whose mothers used want in multiple contexts experienced a significantly larger gain in mental state terms over a 6-month period. Study 2 examined 50 preschoolers, measuring theory of mind (ToM) with tasks and mental state terms, then had parents intervene by reading booklets in which want was used in 1 or multiple contexts. Over a 6-week period, the latter group made larger gains in ToM. We posit that maternal use of want in multiple contexts assists understanding that want refers to an underlying mental state rather than a single behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record

Parent involvement in beginning primary school: Correlates and changes in involvement across the first two years of school in a New Zealand sample.

This study described the relations of parents' and teachers' beliefs and attitudes to forms of parents' involvement in children's first two years of primary school. Parents of children in their first year of primary school (age 5) were recruited from 12 classrooms within four schools in New Zealand; 196 families participated in their child's first year, and 124 families continued to participate in their child's second school year. Parents completed the Family-Involvement Questionnaire, New Zealand, and we archivally collected parent-documented children's oral reading homework. Teachers' rated helpfulness of parents' involvement at school (level 2) and parents' rated teacher invitations to be involved and their perceived time and energy (level 1) contributed to school-based involvement in Year 1 in multilevel models, with parents' rated teacher invitations for involvement also found to predict Year 1 home-school communication in regression analyses. Contributors to Year 1 child-parent reading in multilevel models included level 1 predictors of two or more adults in the home and parents' perceived time and energy. Longitudinal analyses suggested both consistency and change in each form of involvement from Year 1 to Year 2, with increases in each form of involvement found to be associated with increases in parents' and/or teachers' views about involvement in Year 2 in cross-sectional time-series analyses. Implications for schools wanting to engage families are that parents' involvement in children's schooling may be influenced by parents' perceptions of their capacity, teachers' engagement efforts, and the school's climate for involvement. This is a special issue paper "Family Engagement in Education and Intervention".

Your Way to a Better Theory of Mind: A Healthy Diet Relates to Better Faux Pas Recognition in Older Adults.

BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Aging is characterized by a well-documented worsening of general cognition, and also a decline in social understanding such as the ability to recognize emotions or detect socially inappropriate behavior (faux pas). Several studies have demonstrated that lifestyle factors (diet, exercise, social integration, smoking) tend to offset general cognitive decline, and we examined whether they also help to offset age-related declines in social cognition. METHODS: There were 56 participants aged 60 years or over. General cognition was measured using a matrices task and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Emotion recognition was measured by the matching of faces to emotion sounds and bodies to sounds. Faux pas recognition was measured by 16 videos, examining participants' ability to differentiate appropriate and inappropriate social behavior. Diet, exercise, social integration, and smoking habits were measured via questionnaires. RESULTS: For general cognition, diet, pr = .32, p < .02, smoking, pr = -.32, p = .02, and education, pr = .48, p < .001, explained unique variance in matrices performance. For social cognition, even after accounting for participants' education, age, exercise habits, smoking, and social integration, a healthy diet explained independent variance in the ability to identify appropriate social behavior, pr = .29, p = .04. CONCLUSION: We replicated previous research in finding that lifestyle factors were related to fluid intelligence. In addition, we obtained the novel finding that a healthy diet is associated with better recognition of faux pas in older adults, likely acting through facilitation of brain health, and providing initial support for a means of enhancing social functioning and well-being in old age.

Self-awareness moderates the relation between maternal mental state language about desires and children's mental state vocabulary.

In this intervention study, we tested the differential effect of talking about children's desires versus talking about others' thoughts and knowledge on children's acquisition of mental state vocabulary for children who did and did not have mirror self-recognition. In a sample of 96 mother-toddler dyads, each mother was randomly assigned a specially constructed, interactive lift-the-flap book to read to her child three times a week for 4 weeks. In the child desire condition the story elicited comments regarding the child's desires, and in the cognitive condition the story elicited the mother's comments about her own thoughts and knowledge while reading the story. Children's mirror self-recognition and mental state vocabulary were assessed at pre- and post-test. Children in the condition that focused on the child's desires showed a significantly greater increase in their mental state vocabulary; however, this effect was moderated by their levels of self-awareness, with children benefitting more from the intervention if they also showed self-recognition at pre-test. We argue that the combination of specific types of maternal talk and children's prior insights facilitates gains in children's mental state vocabulary.

Toddlers' bias to look at average versus obese figures relates to maternal anti-fat prejudice.

Anti-fat prejudice (weight bias, obesity stigma) is strong, prevalent, and increasing in adults and is associated with negative outcomes for those with obesity. However, it is unknown how early in life this prejudice forms and the reasons for its development. We examined whether infants and toddlers might display an anti-fat bias and, if so, whether it was influenced by maternal anti-fat attitudes through a process of social learning. Mother-child dyads (N=70) split into four age groups participated in a preferential looking paradigm whereby children were presented with 10 pairs of average and obese human figures in random order, and their viewing times (preferential looking) for the figures were measured. Mothers' anti-fat prejudice and education were measured along with mothers' and fathers' body mass index (BMI) and children's television viewing time. We found that older infants (M=11months) had a bias for looking at the obese figures, whereas older toddlers (M=32months) instead preferred looking at the average-sized figures. Furthermore, older toddlers' preferential looking was correlated significantly with maternal anti-fat attitudes. Parental BMI, education, and children's television viewing time were unrelated to preferential looking. Looking times might signal a precursor to explicit fat prejudice socialized via maternal anti-fat attitudes.

Statistical learning as a basis for social understanding in children.

Many authors have argued that infants understand goals, intentions, and beliefs. We posit that infants' success on such tasks might instead reveal an understanding of behaviour, that infants' proficient statistical learning abilities might enable such insights, and that maternal talk scaffolds children's learning about the social world as well. We also consider which skills and insights are likely to be innate, and why it is difficult to say exactly when children understand mental states as opposed to behaviours.